We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the staggered entry of new managers into India's 42 public R&D labs between 1994 and 2006 to study how alignment between the CEO and middle-level managers affect research productivity. We show that the introduction of new lab managers aligned with the...

While there is evidence about labor market discrimination based on race, religion, and gender, we know little about whether physical appearance leads to discrimination in labor market outcomes. We deploy a randomized experiment on 1,000 respondents in India between April and May 2020 to...

High ability individuals can be constrained from commensurate employment opportunities due to their geographic location. In the face of physical, informational and social barriers to migration, firms with nation-wide hiring practices can benefit from facilitating the migration of high ability...

Our study is one of the first natural experiments around the role of leaders in the context of firms. Also while most prior natural experiments around leadership in the policy world have exploited the death of the leader, we exploit an alternate exogenous shock – rigid bureaucratic rules that...

Improving performance of state owned entities (SOEs) can have significant economic impact in countries like India, where SOEs comprise around 30% of aggregate industrial sales. Though the literature on SOE reform is focused on privatization, privatization often has its limits. We suggest an...